Intro
	18 March 19 March 20 March 21 March 22 March 23 March 24 March 25 March 26 March 27 March		28 March 29 March 30 March 31 March 01 April 05-06 April

Intro

Jack is a neutered male two year old Border Terrier who belongs to my friend, Anita. About six months ago Anita rescued a Yorkie on the verge of death and had to pay a lot of attention to the Yorkie. Jack's behaviour around the house, my training building and in general deteriorated.

The most obvious problem was that Jack was that he was marking and submissively peeing *everywhere*. A visit to my training building didn't go by without having to clean up multiple pee spots, both marking and submissive urination.

Anita's sun porch (which gives access to her yard), her other dog's crates, her kitchen, her office, her living room--all marked frequently.

It didn't happen all at once, of course. It came on gradually. It started slowly and then started to gather speed.

At the same time, so did other undesirable behaviours. He started doing increasing amounts of puppy sits and puppy butt wiggles. These are undesirable in Jack because they greatly increase the likelihood that Jack will submissively urinate for another dog (he doesn't submissively pee for humans). He stopped wanting to play normally with his packmates. He started reverting to puppy crying, rolling over, etc, in greeting people. He reverted to scrabbling wildly at people when he wanted their attention.

Anita's other dogs were starting to get tense in response to Jack's peculiar behaviour. They didn't want to live with his inappropriately puppy-like conduct either!

And to top it off, Anita is about to go through a major household change. Her brother is coming to live with her and he has a cat; Jack is very nervous around cats. In re-arranging her house, finishing up painting the interior, etc, Jack's behaviour took a nosedive.

Anita and I were discussing stuff via e-mail and I offered to take him for a month and fix the marking problem. While I am sure there are dogs that I cannot housetrain, so far I've been lucky enough not to have met them. I used to do rescue and that entailed my housetraining a whole bunch of recently intact males, so I had lots of practice. It's been years but I figured I could still remember how to do it.

Jack could never have guessed what was about to happen to him.

18 March

I picked Jack up from Anita's place late in the evening. I figured that if we were going to rock Jack's world, we might as well get started right away.

Anita packed up his usual food, his favorite toys and his favorite chewies in a nice bag for him.

I placed his overnight crate in the bathroom with a couple towels thrown in. I didn't want to place his crate in our bedroom because that's where the permanent residents sleep. They deserve to have a sanctuary free of Jack. Plus I figured I'd need some time off from Jack! The large bathroom is actually quite a good place because it's noticeably warmer than our bedroom--Jack likes warm places. With the door closed, it would be nice and quiet for him.

I figured right away that Jack was not ready for the freedom of being tied to me. When walking from place to place, I needed to keep the leash in my hand lightly taut so I could monitor exactly what he was doing at every second. I didn't want to have to watch him because I have enough problems walking without asking for a fall by not watching where I'm going!

I had Jack do a long down on a matt laid under my computer desk while I did e-mail. He complied mostly because he didn't have a choice--my foot on the leash prevented him from getting up. He could lie down comfortably but sitting or standing was not comfortable.

For the past year, Jack has played with my dogs and knows them well. When I didn't allow him to greet them in his own way (super submissive, puppy cries, rolling over on his back, etc), he showed a lot of fear of them. I ended up having to drag him into the apartment every time I left my computer desk.

When I took him outside to pee, I stood in the middle of the potty yard and didn't let him get close enough to lift his hind leg on anything. I figure the more problems a handler has with urination inside the house, the more control they need to take outside the house.

Jack refused to pee. I'll have him on the puppy pee schedule for at least a week (outside once every waking hour; after meals and play are not a factor because he's not getting fed meals and he's not going to be playing hard enough with anyone to cause him to need to pee).

At one point, Rhiannan slipped out with us. She peed near the fence and Jack was absolutely frantic to run over and mark over her pee spot. He was scrabbling desperately in the gravel, pulling like crazy and generally being an idiot about it.

We went to bed at 3 am with Jack not having peed at all. I drifted off to sleep to the sound of outraged cries coming from my large bathroom but little did the generator of those cries understand that I'm deaf in one ear and my sound machine covered up the cries quite well.

19 March

Woke up to the sweet sound of silence. Didn't last long.

As soon as Jack realized that there were humans awake, he started screaming. I spent almost a half hour opening the door, approaching his crate, then backing up and closing the door. Jack would try to repress the crate screams but when my hand got close to the door it was just too much for him. I had to quit so I could take some Advil--my back was killing me!

Something about the break worked. When I went back, it only took five tries to get the crate door open, catch the speeding Border Terrier and put a leash on him.

This time I walked him into the parking lot to pee. He was *outraged*! He's used to peeing on the tarp covering the lawn tractor--well, that just wasn't available because I didn't get that close. Or the support posts for the porch--ICK! No way was I going to put up with that!

Stayed out there quite a while, Jack never peed.

Came in and I had to literally drag Jack along because he badly wanted to stop and pee on my tables, chairs, display cabinets, etc.

Jack is getting token meals--five kibbles and a tablespoon of the raw meat/veggie glop that I feed my dogs. All the rest of the kibble he gets, he'll have to earn. I asked Jim (my husband) to put Jack's complete days' ration into an empty yogurt container.

After the first training session, I realized I was going to have to ration it out even further. Jack gets less than one cup of kibble per day--a far cry from my Belgians, who eat 5 to 8 cups of kibble a day! If I put a Belgian on an earn-to-eat program, I have no problem with the length of training sessions because there's just a whole lot of food there.

So I decided to do training sessions limited to 15 kibbles each time. This is good, it will curb my tendency to wander off track and not really get anything trained. I'll have to plan out what I want to get done because I can't frivol around with a limit like that!

Jack is going on the "ten out of every sixty" plan, meaning he'll be trained ten minutes once an hour. The rest of the time, he'll simply be my little red appendage, ignored and apparently invisible to the rest of the world. My little wrinkle is now the "15 bits per hour" plan! <G>

During the day we worked on retrieve, sits, downs and distinguishing between sit and down.

I had to go visit my parents to pick up my birthday gift and so Jim could fix their computer. Jack went along. While we were in the house, he was tied to me and invisible to everyone else. A shock for Jack, who uses his cuteness to reap admiring cries everywhere!

By the end of the visit, Jack was being cooperative enough that I thought he could greet my mother. I did have to have him lay down a few times for jumping up on her but he didn't scrabble.

He did get quite a bit of crate time that day, what with the hour long trip to and from Iowa City and the dinner that the humans enjoyed at a nice restaurant--thanks Mom and Dad!

20 March

Jack's peeing was becoming a concern to me. He wasn't that thirsty and he wasn't peeing that often. Since I feed my dogs a homemade diet, I'm usually shocked at how much water dogs that eat kibble drink. Additionally, Jack wasn't pooping either.

I considered using a suppository but decided to give it one more day. I did give Jack some chicken broth to encourage him to pee.

Big mistake! He didn't pee. He got an hourly trip outside and we (Jim and I) spent quite a long time out there with him. No go, literally.

By evening, Jack was quite tired. He didn't get any crate time Thursday; when I took my nap, Jim took over "the midget" as we have dubbed him and did the same thing I did. A long down when Jim was settled somewhere, a lightly taut leash other places.

By late evening, Jack still hadn't peed. I got involved in stuffing Kongs in anticipation of the weekend. I had a seminar scheduled and I wanted to give my own dogs something fun to do to compensate for the lack of my attention. Why yes, I am a guilty dog mommy, why do you ask?

As I'm reaching the end of the Kong stuffing, I happen to glance down. Jack is lying on his side, passed out, in a HUGE puddle of urine!

I wish I hadn't done it but I yelled at him and scruff-shook him almost reflexively. In retrospect, I suspect he never woke up when he peed. He's normally quite a fastidious dog and would never have laid in his own pee like that had he been awake. Perhaps he dreamt that someone dipped his paw in warm water?

I got him sort of cleaned off and thanked my lucky stars that Rev was coming over to wash my dogs the next day in anticipation of the seminar. We're deep in the Iowa mud season here and even though Belgian coats don't hold onto dirt, each mud coating does reduce the general cleanliness level.

During training, we worked on speed sits, downs, retrieve and a new behaviour, "rest." Rest is where I hold out my hand and he rests his chin on it. It's a variation of targeting that does not involve being touched by a cold, wet dog's nose. I think Jack has potential as a therapy dog--all that cuteness has to be good for something!--and that can segue very nicely into a charming greeting behaviour.

21 March

Jack started to realize that the new regime wasn't going to end soon. Anita came over to drop something off and he fussed a bit when she left.

We did some training and then I realized that I had to take a *long* nap in order to do my best for the seminar. This broken collarbone really takes it out of me, even more than normal. Everything takes forever for me to do and I'm not sleeping well because I keep getting into a position where I put pressure on it and wake up in pain. Whine, whine, whine.

Since Jim was busy, I made an expedient decision and crated Jack. I know that crating time is lost time but I do have an obligation to students to consider. I went to bed and the only thing that disturbed my sleep were the screams when Rev bathed him. He's very used to being bathed and Rev is the best--so gentle that even my 16 year old dogs are more willing to let her bathe/groom them than they are for me to do it! But Jack had not had a good three days and he thought maybe screaming about it might help.

I had a lesson at five that was quite fun, even though it involved some bad news (puppy with suspected neck injury). Jack was quiet and fairly compliant, although he did not do a down voluntarily even once.

Then at seven was the pre-camp clicker intro. Oh. My. Jack was outraged that he wasn't allowed to do his usual job of being doggy greeter. I think he was shocked that no one seemed to notice how cute he is. I *know* he was upset that he was expected to lie quietly with everything going on.

Anita had Bria there. Jack wanted badly to play with Bria. When Anita left with Bria, Jack was far more upset than when Anita had left alone earlier in the day.

Jack started spitting the treats. There was an element of "I hate YOU and I hate your crummy treats" as well as stress involved.

Jack's first owner, who had him until he was nearly a year old (he was a conformation dog whose bite went quite bad when he matured), heavily reinforced looking or acting miserable. Anita doesn't reinforce it but old habits die hard.

I think campers were somewhat concerned about the miserable little dog. Little did they know what the next day would bring.

22 March

The day did not start well for Jack. Once again, he was upset that he wasn't being allowed to run loose and greet all the new dogs and people.

He never did a voluntary down the whole day. Every time I told him to down, I had to use my foot on the leash to make it happen.

I had a crate out in the middle of the floor and I put a mat in it to make it more comfy for him. I shaped him to go into the crate and was using treat tossing to keep him there.

Jack hadn't peed that morning. He was on the hourly potty stop schedule and Jim (who did most of it) always gives him a long time. Perhaps it's because Jim grabs the opportunity for a smoke when he's out there!

Lunch was from 12:15 to 1:30. Jack was outside for most of that time and never peed. After lunch, I put him in the crate in the middle of the ring and worked on tossing treats for him again. By this time, I had used up at least half his treats and maybe more (this is significant, as you will see in the entry for 24 March).

At about five minutes of two, Jack stood up in the crate and peed. And peed. And peed. Nothing I could do about it, so I just let him do it. Anita reminded me later that when Jack was more normal and had an urgent need to pee, he'd do a small half-pee, then hold it until he got outside. Not this time--he peed and peed and peed.

I had Jim move the crate and crate pad. After that volume of urine, I figured there was no need to let him out, so went back to having him do a long down. Jack was not happy.

There is nothing that can look more miserable than a Border Terrier. The big round eyes that turn into fathomless wells of misery. The tail curled under. The head hung low. The whole body stiff with outrage. Even when Jack was lying on his side, he was so stiff that the legs on top stuck out straight. The shaking (terriers shake when feeling strong emotions).

Camp participants became quite concerned. It seemed so horrible to stress a dog out that way. How could I do such a thing?

Even after Jack stood up and deliberately marked the floor right in front of me, giving me heavy duty eye contact that was certainly not loving, people were concerned.

I tried to talk about how Jack had been living with a level of decision making he was not able to handle but it kept getting back to the stress level. I tried to make the point that Jack's stress level is self-inflicted; he's getting hourly potty breaks, hourly clicker training sessions, four or five opportunities a day to play with a toy with me. My dogs tell me that all this would make *them* happy and they're ready to sign up for the plan but not Jack. Jack is choosing to focus on all the stuff he can't have.

Ah well.

23 March

A new day is a new day!

Jack woke up all happy and perky, came out of his crate all happy and perky and stayed all happy and perky all day.

All of a sudden, he was happy to stick with me. He was happy to participate in training sessions with me. He was happy to chew on a bully stick even with me holding it--not for long, only about a minute at a time but better than the previous day when he'd turn his head away and look miserable.

Jack started lying down voluntarily. Jack was a lot more self controlled, even when Bria or Tink was in sight.

The difference was truly amazing.

The way I think of it, it's like an alcoholic hitting bottom: there's nowhere to go but up.

Jack was peeing at appropriate intervals outside. He managed to meet several people in his adult mode.

One person observed that Hunter does everything I was asking Jack for--except that Hunter does it willingly, Jack has a choice. On the other hand, Jack was getting plentiful treats for doing that stuff!

By the end of the day, Jack was clearly quite tired but still perky.

I think a corner has been turned.

24 March

Jack woke up feeling better and so did I. I'm so sick of that sling that I didn't wear it for two hours. Then I really regretted it. <G>

We did several training sessions today on retrieve, rest and staying in his crate. This time we're using Jack's crate from Anita's van. It's on the small side so that Jack can brace himself against the sides when riding and rest comfortably. Anita's thought was that it's too small for him to pee in and be able to step out of the way.

Jack peed and pooped at appropriate intervals and times.

Anita was bathing her other dogs and Jack practiced his civility. Not always willingly!

Ah, the interesting thing about Saturday night and Sunday was that Jack was starting to offer all sorts of calming behaviours--full body shakes, yawns, turning his head away. The strange thing about Jack is that before Saturday night, he never did a full body shake unless he was wet.

Sunday, he did it repeatedly!

Today, Jack also started doing something new. When he was in the crate, I'd toss treats. When he tried to sneak out of the crate, I'd use my foot to barricade the way. That wasn't really working (I kept having to do it) so I started having Jack do a down whenever he tried to leave the crate. Didn't take many before he was choosing to stay in the crate.

By the end of the session, Jack would spot a temptation, look at me, and lie down. WOWZA!

I also made an interesting discovery. It suddenly occurred to me that there seemed to be an awful lot of kibble in the yogurt container. It was a sixteen ounce container and filled almost to the rim. What is wrong with this picture?

Turns out Jim thought it was an eight ounce container. No wonder Jack didn't seem very hungry after only eating half his daily ration on Saturday! He's been getting twice as much food as he normally gets!

Six ounces of food is a lot less than 14 ounces of food. Poor Jack is back to his usual ration.

25 March

I was less tired yesterday than I am today--funny how that works.

Jack seemed quite tired as well. Not miserable, just a bit subdued and not as perky as usual.

So we did a few training sessions: retrieve, sits and downs, stay in your crate. No wonderful breakthrough moments, both of us were just plodding through the motions.

So I took a long nap and Jack took an even longer one. I napped in the afternoon, then got up and had Jack with me for a couple hours, felt so tired and Jack looked so tired that I put him back in his crate.

Every time I went into the bathroom after that, Jack was completely passed out. Didn't even twitch an ear when I went in and out. Not even a cat slipping in with me could wake him up!

26 March

Jack's long sleep (almost 16 hours with a couple trips out to potty) seems to have done the trick for him. He woke up his usual happy, cheerful self.

We did a short training session (rest and stay in your crate), then to the computer so I could do e-mail. At the next training session, a couple of Rev's grooming clients were there and Jack distinguished himself as a BAD EXAMPLE. He's figured out that I won't let him greet people like he's a puppy (puppy cries, rolling over, etc), so apparently he decided to try out a new behaviour: growling at them.

CHARMING! <eyes rolling>

Jack got to practice his long down involuntarily until he decided to stop growling. As soon as he did, I let him up and he did a full body shake, which I praised profusely. Then he gave me full eye contact and stretched, rather tentatively, which I also praised. The wheels in his little head are obviously turning. Fast. I hope the bearings don't burn out. <G>

In the afternoon, Anita brought her dogs over for a field run before the rain. I decided it was time for Jack to have an on-lead excursion to the field.

I only had to have him down about forty times on the way to the field (less than a hundred feet). With the other dogs running and bouncing and barking and generally carrying on, it was all Jack could do to contain himself.

At one point, he was flipping around and grabbed the tongue of my shoe, shaking it vigorously. I told him that if he was thinking of displacing on me, he should think again. I should have saved my breath.

Out in the field, I sat down in the handy chair near the gate, where all the dogs could blast around us. Jack was outraged! All his buddies were having their usual fun, running the Newfs, charging across the field, etc, and he was condemned to spend the time with Shirley.

At one point, he did decide to see if biting me would change my mind. He rather tentatively and gently went chomp-chomp-chomp across my shin. I grabbed him and made up a speech about how I was going to jerk his teeth out and feed them to the crows. I think Jack was impressed and I know Satchmo was!

I used "Strip!" for the hysterical barking (it's shrill and horrible). Jack is a Border Terrier and Border Terriers are groomed by having their old loose hair pulled out. It's not uncomfortable for the dog if they are used to it and if the person doing the stripping pulls just a few hairs at a time in the direction of the grain of the hair. Stripping promotes a tight, weatherproof coat and good deep pigment.

I don't strip like that. I say "Strip!" then I grab a big pinch of whatever I can grab, clamp down and rip it out. I'm sure it's not pleasant. Old hair, middle-aged hair, young hair--it all gets yanked out. That would be why Jack now has a little bald spot in the middle of his head--sorry, Anita!

Jack is definitely not a fan of the way I strip. In fact, he's so not a fan of it that he stifles the shrill barking rather quickly.

The reason I tell Jack "Strip!" is that I want him to know what I'm about to do so he doesn't have to fear my hands at other times. It must be working because he's definitely not afraid of my hands.

The general tension level was fairly high, I'm not sure why. At one point, Orion made several drive-by pokings of Tink (Anita's Yorkie). Orion finally made the mistake of trying it while Tink was hiding under my chair. I grabbed Orion and scolded him while he screamed at me. Big mistake! Hunter came flying in and decided to finish the scolding himself. This is the classic time for Jack to try to make some cheap shots from the rear, so I was holding Orion with my right hand and pulling up on the leash with my left arm. Perhaps this explains the renewed aches in my collarbone this evening?

It all amounted to some flying spit, no hair pulled nor any blood shed (not that they usually do those things!). Orion ran around sassing off at the older dogs for awhile, saying "you can't treat me this way!" from a safe distance. Finally Hunter and Chamois decided to forgive him and let him be part of the pack again.

Mae tried to stir things up a couple times after that but was mostly unsuccessful. She loves to see a scuffle--Anita says she's a voyeur and I think it's true!

Going back to the building was a slow process because Jack could not resist sniffing. Sniffing precedes marking, so he's not allowed to sniff. Oddly enough, as soon as I have him lie down, he stops sniffing. Without the rest of the context, he just doesn't sniff.

We did manage to make it back into the building before the rain.

The humans talked for quite a while, so Jack practiced his long down and then stay in your crate. He's gotten to the point that if he's tempted to leave the crate, he lies down! Good boy, Jack.

After Anita left, I tried to do a little training with him but he was completely worn out. Kept making mistakes and was clearly just guessing. So he went to his crate for an early bedtime and once again, has been totally passed out. We wake him up every three hours or so to pee but really, I think he'd rather be left alone.

27 March

Today was a so-so day for Jack. He slept late because we slept late but I think he needed it--he was quite difficult to wake up.

I did a little training with him but had to run some errands, so he had a lot more sleeping crate time than usual.

The big deal of the day was being with me during training class. He did very nice Doggie Zen demos and was quite cooperative with me while I taught.

I have realized, however, that I need to teach him how to ask for permission to do things! As it is, he just barrels straight ahead with anything that catches his fancy; it just doesn't occur to him to ask permission. He figures that if it isn't okay, the humans (or dogs) will restrain him.

I think he's starting to use down as his ask permission cue. I need to talk to Anita and decide if this is a good one for her living situation or not. I rather like it because of the calming effect it has on him. Context would be the clue as to whether he was lying down to ask permission for something he wants or whether he's just taking a rest.

I've really come to appreciate Hunter's sincere eyes as he pats me with a front paw to ask me for something. Jack rarely looks at humans. One of the people who was at the camp last weekend (thanks for the insight, Marilyn!) said that in her mind's eye, she doesn't really see his eyes because he so rarely makes eye contact. This is changing--Jack is starting to use significant stares to send me messages. Most of the messages are along the lines of "you must be insane!" which does count as communication.

I've had more eye contact with Jack in the last week than I have had in the previous year. I'm not formally training it, just reinforcing it as it happens.

I'm also seeing more and more full body shakes. As hoped, Jack is beginning to use it as a way of releasing stress. If I can ever remember to get the word out of my mouth at the right time, I'll simply pair the cue with the behaviour for awhile. Every now and then, I'll test to see if the cue has been successfully paired with the behaviour in his mind.

28 March

Posted by Jim.
I got Shirley off to the airport safe and sound, then got word a few hours later that she landed safe and sound. Jack and I took a break while I caught up on some sleep. I was up and down throughout the day and Jack practiced his long down when I was up. I'm seeing a lot of improvement in his behavior. He makes a lot more eye contact, and there actually seems to be 'some-one home' when you look into those eyes. He's just not the constant raving lunatic he was when we go outside. He seems to be always aware that there's someone at the other end of the leash.

29 March

Posted by Jim.
I managed to work a little more with Jack today. We did some 'puppy-pushups' and practiced his staying in a crate with the door open. Once in while a nugget of the kibble would bounce back out of the crate, and unless it was right in front of the open door where he could get it without stepping out of the crate he just ignored it, looking up at me for the next bit of kibble. If he had to get up to get a bit of kibble he automatically went back into a down before looking at me for the next treat. In between sessions he did a long down at my feet with his chin resting on my foot.

His 'potty-yard' behavior has greatly improved, with as many four-on-the-floor pees as hikes/marks. I make sure he doesn't hike on any vertical surfaces but otherwise I don't say much when he hikes, just a 'Good Boy' and we move on. When he does a four-on-the-floor pee I make a BIG deal of it. One time he hiked his leg, looked straight at me, and dropped the leg to ground before peeing. I made a very big deal of that one. He got so excited at the heavy praise that he started to jump up on me, but aborted and did a down instead.

I've also been trying to limit his wandering, while looking for a good place to pee, down to a 180 degree area in front and to the sides of me. He used to go round and round and I got tired of having to constantly turn in circles to keep an eye on him. Now I just use the leash, without saying a word, to keep him in that 180 degree area and his attempts to get behind me are diminishing. I've also started limiting the amount of time he gets to find that 'perfect spot', and in turn he's getting quicker at finding it.

30 March

Posted by Jim.
Quiet day today. Jack and I worked on his downs, did some puppy situps, and worked on his crate stuff; he did okay. Anita worked with him for a while and he wasn't great. Not bad, just not great. I suspect he was both happy to see her and tired from the sessions we had. I think he really just wanted to convince Anita he was ready to go home now. She tried to get him to do the 'Rest' thing, where he rests his chin on her hand on cue, but he tried instead to do what she taught him when she put her hand out, which was to do a paw whack on her hand. It looks like he's picked up some new default behaviors, much better than the hiking all over the house. It seems now that when he's stressed or excited he either wants to go in his crate or do a down, he's gotten really good at using a whole body shake to calm himself too. His Auntie Shirley will be home tomorrow, but I imagine she'll be too tired to work with him right away.

31 March

Posted by Jim.
Both Anita and I worked with Jack today. He cooperated with me but started resuming old behaviors with Anita till she made him do a long down. Then he started to accept that the new rules he's living under apply to mommy too; not completely though. She'll obviously have to work with him more before he completely accepts that.

Shirley arrived home safe and sound. Well, more or less sound. She's always pretty worn out after an out-of-town seminar. I'll keep on Jack till she's really ready to resume the job of mean Auntie Shirley. <g>

01 April

Got back from Canada (had a lovely time) last night. Woke up feeling relatively chirpy.

Jack slid back a bit but not too bad. He's no longer 100% on downs in calm situations, more like 70%. He wasn't interested in play retrieve with me but that will change (because he doesn't get a choice of interests).

He went out to pee but didn't poop. He was fussy and unsettled and I knew he needed to poop but he doesn't get to it right away. It often takes three or four trips outside before he gets to it (would rather not be pooping on lead or has been conditioned to need a lot of activity before pooping). So I decided "that's it, no more choices as to poop area or timing." Got out the suppositories and pretty purple nitrile disposable gloves and introduced them to Jack. He looked rather surprised as Jim rushed him out the door to poop. Jim said he continued to look surprised as he pooped.

When Jack came back in after that little excursion, he was clearly more comfortable and ready to work.

I've started introducing him to a paw touch as a request for permission to do something he wants. I introduced the paw whack, which wasn't tough since he already did it with Anita. Then I start throwing a kibble, using the leash to restrain him and waiting for a tiny thought to tumble through his frazzled brain: maybe a paw whack? Today I helped him by holding my hand in the cueing position. Pretty quickly he got the idea to turn and whack my hand if his first plan (lunge after the moving treat) didn't work. Once he's fairly solid on paw whacking, I'll work on his Plan A approach.

We visited my parents and Jack was actually much better than the first visit. I did three training sessions with him there and he settled in and worked well right away.

I gave him the chance to roam one of the bathrooms in my parent's house while I used the facility. He handled it appropriately--checked out everything, showed no inclination to lift his leg, came and looked at me when his exploration was done.

I think one more day with a lightly taut leash and then we're going to work on being responsible on a loose leash.

Also, with Hunter's cooperation, I think we'll put the harness and longer leash on Jack tomorrow and give him a chance for some play with Hunter. Then I'll evaluate how Jack handles himself after playing.

5-6 April

Posted by Anita.
I had a chance to work with Jack Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning at the building (during a seminar makeup session) – first time I’d had him with me in a week. I didn’t take notes so can’t split off one day from the other.

But I was terribly impressed. First of all, he’d been so inattentive and schizoid with me the weekend before, when Shirley was out of town. Secondly, the last time I’d seen him was the infamous mid-week field trip, when Jack escaped from Shirley and went running around the field marking everything in site and then doing his macho-wannabe back-leg scratching to cover his marking. Shirley had Jim and I trying to follow him around and "shoo" him away to make his little escape somewhat less exciting. We were lucky to get within 20 feet of him.

And the day before, when I’d asked Shirley how he was progressing after his little field escapade, she indicated he’d done a bit of backsliding. So when I took his leash, my expectations were pretty low.

So imagine my surprise when I found, at the end of the leash, this calm, focused dog! He chewed on a stick treat while I held it (which drove my Berner Bria absolutely nuts with jealousy, hee hee); he went down on his own (not always, but often); he stood calmly at my feet and watched strange dogs go right by him without lunging or whining or butt-wagging excitedly, gave himself a full-body shake and then laid down – after MUCH praise from me! In the past, he has felt it absolutely necessary to go groveling up to every dog, becoming more and more submissive and offering all sorts of puppy-play signals that are inappropriate for a dog that’s halfway between two and three years old.

We worked with the dumbbell; we worked on sits and downs; we worked on crate stays with door open (and he was actually relaxed about it). We went around the building on a “you can sniff” cue, with clicks and treats for looking back at me. He did a squat pee/mark on leash outside, three times!

Through it all he was a wonderfully mature Little Brown Dog, completely different than the one that left home three weeks ago and even the one I worked with just a week ago. And, through it all, he gave me lots of eye contact. Overall, he struck me as a much happier dog than I’ve ever seen.

The only reversal to old behaviors I witnessed – actually, heard – was when the seminar dogs started raising a decent vocal ruckus. Jack, in his bathroom crate away from them for a well-deserved brain rest, could be heard yelling halfway down the block.

We’ve always liked Jack because he gets along well with all dogs, would never challenge any dog, and can teach most any dog to play. Now I know it was all a bluff. Truth is, I think he feels much better now when his human (me or Shirley) is right there and the human makes the decision about whether or not he interacts. It’s taken a huge load off his mind. His only distress this weekend came when he was isolated, away from his human.

What a change!